No place for Umran Malik in Hyderabad's final game of disappointing season: SRH predicted XI vs MI

SRH have nothing to lose but they face an MI team who will be fighting to ensure a place in the top four.

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will take on the Mumbai Indians (MI) in the IPL 2023 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday. The Aiden Markram-led side has lost last three games in a row and need to beat MI in their final game of the season to move off the bottom of the table. They have lost nine out of their thirteen games so far this season.

Umran Malik has been omitted from the playing eleven for the last few games. (PTI)

After losing their opening two games convincingly to RR and LSG, SRH bounced back in style by winning their next two games against PBKS and KKR. But then lost consecutive games to MI, CSK and DC. They lost to DC in Hyderabad as the batters buckled under the pressure from the DC bowlers and SRH fell short of the 145-run target by 7 runs. SRH avenged the loss in Hyderabad by defeating DC by 9 runs in Delhi and getting a much-needed win under their belt. SRH then lost to KKR in Hyderabad. But unexpectedly beat RR in their next game. Since then they have lost consecutive games to LSG, GT and RCB.

Last time out, Klaasen’s maiden IPL ton powered SRH to a competitive 186/5, but RCB's opening pair of Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis dominated the SRH bowlers. Kohli ended up scoring his first IPL century since 2019 and the side from Bangalore eventually romped to victory by eight wickets.

There have been flashes of brilliance from a number of SRH batters but only Klaasen has made consistent contributions so far this season. Before the season started SRH had one of the strongest teams on paper with a balanced bowling unit supporting an explosive batting unit but they have not been good enough this season and the batters have especially let the team down on multiple occasions. The bowlers have also on some occasions looked toothless and devoid of ideas. Against RCB, Klaasen scored his maiden IPL ton but the others could not support him ably otherwise SRH could have scored over 200 runs.

Brook has scored 190 runs, Rahul Tripathi has scored 273 runs and Markram has scored 235 runs so far, Abhishek Sharma has also chipped in with 226 runs. Mayank Agarwal has scored 187 runs. Samad has chipped in with 169 runs.

Brook, Markram and Agarwal have all been very disappointing this season as before the season they were expected to shoulder the majority of the run-scoring burden. Brook is expected to continue in the side after returning against RCB.

Klaasen has been SRH’s best batter this season. He is the top scorer for the team with 430 runs so far. As for the bowlers, Mayank Markande has picked up 12 wickets so far this season at an economy of seven. Bhuvneshwar Kumar is the highest wicket-taker for the team after his fifer against GT and has scalped 15 wickets this season. Marco Jansen has picked up 10 wickets. Natarajan has also chipped in with 10 wickets so far. Umran Malik has chipped in with 5 scalps but has been very expensive and has been omitted from the playing eleven for the last few games. Natarajan, Jansen and Markande are expected to return to the side in place of Reddy, Tyagi and Phillips.

SRH predicted XI vs MI

Openers: Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma.

Middle Order: Aiden Markram (c), Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Harry Brook, Abdul Samad.

All-rounders: Marco Jansen.

Bowlers: T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, Mayank Dagar.

Impact Player

Mayank Agarwal, Kartik Tyagi, Vivrant Sharma or Mayank Dagar could be utilised as the Impact player by SRH.